David Gould

If the universe or the meta universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, there must be an infinite number of years between this point in time and a point of time in the past.

However, of the universe or the meta universe was at that point of time in the past it would not have reached this current point - not enough time could pass for an infinite amount of time to be reached.

Thus, the universe or the meta universe cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time.

Thus, the universe or the meta universe must have begun a finite time in the past.

Is the above correct or have I made a huge logical error (I know it is not about the Existence of God yet but I am leading up to that so have patience - I am actually trying to argue on the theist side for a change of pace and want to see how far I can get, if at all).

Doubting Didymus

Whoa there! Even I can see the problem with that one, and I usually avoid the physics side of things.

You say: "If the universe or the meta universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, there must be an infinite number of years between this point in time and a point of time in the past."

This is very very obviously untrue, it is the same thing as saying there is an infinite number of years between now and yesterday.

The rest of the argument is based on this cosmic falsehood, and it all goes down the gurgler.
Sorry.

Besides, I gathered that physicists and religionists both agreed that the universe began a finite number of years ago.

David Gould

Umm, I'm sorry. I must have missed something.

Why exactly is me saying:

"if the universe has existed for an infinite number of years there must be a point in time an infinite number of years in the past when it still existed"

the same as me saying that an infinite number of years existe between now and yesterday?

I certainly accept that there might be a flaw in my argument - in fact, I am hoping there is one.

But explain in simple language how that is so (please).

Tercel

David,
As Doubting Didymus has pointed out, even given an infinite universe, there exists no such point in time X where the distance between X and the current time Y is infinite. The difference between any two given points on an infinite range will always be finite.

Try rephrasing it as something like:
For a point in time to be reached, all prior points in time much occur before it can occur. If there is an infinite number of prior points in time to the current point, then an infinite number of points must be transversed prior to the current one. Since an infinite cannot be completely transversed, this would never happen, and thus the assumption is false since the current point has been reached.

David Gould

Ah - you are right. I thought there was a circle in there somewhere: I just couldn't find it.

I like your rephrasing.

Is there anything logically flawed about that one?

edited to add: may I post it on another forum.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: David Gould ]</p>

HRG

IMHO Tercel's reformulation doesn't save your argument from the essential objection: the concept of transversal requires an initial point as well as a final one.

Besides, who says that we cannot transverse an actual infinity given infinite time ?

Of course, if time is continuous, we are transversing an infinite (even uncountable) number of events every second.

Regards,
HRG.

Clutch

HRG is right; Tercel's version fares no better. What characterizes a past series of infinite length (of the cardinality of the natural numbers) is that it contains no element more than finitely removed from the present. And "contains no element" means contains no element. From every point in the series it's a finite length to the present. So such a past simply contains no point from which the traversing of an infinite series is required.

I've explained this about six times here in the last few months, about half of those on threads involving Tercel. He has never replied, and just keeps making the same mistake.

RogerLeeCooke

This is one of the antinomies of pure reason that Kant wrote about. There is a difference between "each" and "all". Each particular, individual point of past time is only finitely far back, but there is no ONE finite point earlier than all of them (as far as we know). Mathematicians frequently deal with finite-valued, but unbounded functions. That's what's going on here. Rather than "finite" or "infinite", it might be better to talk of "open-ended" or "closed." If there was a first point of time, then one could argue that it wasn't infinitely long ago (but I wouldn't be too sure of that). If there was no first point of time (or earliest event, or however you describe it), there is no paradox. But the whole thing is so far beyond our limited human experience that it's hard to know what is or is not possible.

Jobar

Thank you, gentlemen- you have given me a thread which I am unequivocally *sure* belongs in Philosophy- this will be the first one I have moved there!